every king needs a queen in his bed
by MintQueenJo
Summary: Whatever he had responded to made Jude stand even straighter and a hand tentatively ran down her front, a nervous gesture that stopped at her stomach. Maybe she was hesitant to laugh at Cardan's apparent slip up. The faerie bowed giving thanks as the court almost paused then he pulled the woman through the crowd. Teetering coming from the throng of bodies.


He loved the look in the brown eyes of her round face as she fumed in the middle of his — their — room hands balled into fists by her side. One of his pale fingers tapped his chin as he circled her. His dark eyes roamed over her skin as her nipples pebbled and down the curve of her back and ass, briefly stopping at the indents under each cheek where it meets thigh. When in front of her he takes a little longer looking at the strip of skin under her belly button the slight swell there before the skin morphs into her mound, dark with the curling hair there.

Eye slide back up, tongue poking out to wet his lips when his eyes assess each round breast, getting heavier by the second. The dusky nipples fully pert, pale skin prickles under his dark gaze as it runs up her throat, traces her jawline, before taking a good minute to memorize her open mouth.

The panting now happening as the fury turns into lust, he smirks at the tears still leaking from her eyes.

"I hate you."

"I know." He finishes sliding out of his shirt, letting the soft fabric drift to the floor. "And yet here we are, you standing right there waiting for me. Like some good tasting treat and I plan to have you. Down to the last bite."

Something in his tone made her shiver and her breath hitched.

She was in the throne room first, she remembered that much. Watching as faeries left and right argued to their king about every aspect they felt had wronged them. Every problem they had that needed to be solved, and any way they could catch the young king's gaze. A gaze they didn't notice or thought nothing of it as it followed the curve of a tan throat as it turned into collarbones before swelling into the top of plump breasts. Jude's gaze was cold as the faeries walked around laughing amongst each other over the fighting, and Cardan —

— Cardan was leaning back on his throne with a leg kicked over the side, bouncing it slightly to the music that was being played. He had a pale hand curled under his cheek, not really listening to the arguing that his guests were asking him to settle. His mind was elsewhere, somewhere where the bed clothes were soft and flowers bloomed on the ceiling. Somewhere where the skin under his palms was warm and full of life, and the noises that left her throat were the sweetest music, and the taste of her lips was better than any wine. Complete ambrosia.

His skin prickled at the thought — the memory — of the tight heat around him. The feel of sharp nails digging into and dragging down his biceps. He could feel the sting of the red lines that were on his skin right now.

A voice called to him and it took a while before he was willing to slide his gaze away, some important faerie or another, he didn't care to remember, especially when he raised an eyebrow bringing the goblet full of wine up to his lips. A twinkle in his eyes as he looked at the faerie male standing there, a faerie woman clinging to him.

Cardan tuned him out as he watched his mouth move before everyone was looking at him, "hmm. Intriguing." As it was, that he felt he knew the man from somewhere but couldn't place him quite.

Whatever he had responded to made Jude stand even straighter and a hand tentatively ran down her front, a nervous gesture that stopped at her stomach. Maybe she was hesitant to laugh at Cardan's apparent slip up. The faerie bowed giving thanks as the court almost paused then he pulled the woman through the crowd. Teetering coming from the throng of bodies.

Jude turned and leaned into Cardan, "you do realize you technically offered to meet his fair maiden of a daughter, right?" Rage rolled in her brown eyes as she stared him down. A dark brow rose again, his own dark eyes ran along Jude as she went back to her position. His thoughts wandered back to their love making, the feral way she clung to him and begged him. The way she looked, hair spread out on the pillows as her flushed face relaxed with her own release. The way she whimpered his name like it was the worst thing to leave her lips, to let him know that she wanted him more than air. She would moan and climax again if his tail flicked out to caress her leg, a tender touch that gave away his love for her. If that's what it was.

Love.

"Your highness?" The shaky voice came and they both turned their heads towards the faerie male and his daughter who had spoken, a green haired waif of a thing. Pale skin taking on a yellow hue and Jude, if she didn't know better, would assume she was very sick.

"You seem distracted, your highness." The male had given a bow, "if we are bothering you maybe we can come to some agreement of another time for a meeting?" And it hit Cardan where he knew the green haired pair in front of him, he saw him a few times conversing with Balekin.

A small wicked smile, "you can't blame me for getting lost in the fantasies of a woman's pleasure." A chuckle went through the crowd, it was no different than what it normally was. "But I agree, a more personal meeting between us. Do enjoy the revel and drink to your content."

What was wrong with him? Normally he was more put together even when around Jude, something about her these past few weeks was making his skin itch. His eyes followed the daughter until they slowly drifted to Jude's scrunched face, she didn't spare him a glance as she walked down the dais and away from him.

She wouldn't tell him that she was looking for her sister, Vivi or Taryn. More Vivi than Taryn right now because if she found her twin she'd find Locke and she didn't want to be pestered by him today. Her skirts were clutched in her hands, a rich green, the knife she had tucked between her breasts.

To her wonderful bad luck she found Vivi and Taryn together, though Locke wasn't nearby yet . What was there even to say to them? A hand grabbed her bare arm and pulled her around. Tawny eyes roam over her with a sickening smile, it makes her stomach roll.

They're not far from Cardan and Locke turns to him, "it seems your seneschal is enjoying the food too much, your highness." Two fingers reach out to poke her stomach and there's a laugh from the throne even though his eyes are tight and the smile stressed.

Cardan's face remains neutral, "well it was known they tend to do that over time. Get rounder."

The crowd roared and jeered, commenting on her ever changing weight as a hand came up to push at her stomach. Tears from suppressed anger rolling down her cheeks, that made it worse. Locke, satisfied that he had made her cry, let her go. She wasn't needed for this merriment so she turned heading back to, where?

She slipped down the halls unnoticed, for either everyone was vying for the king's attention or no one really cared. Tears continued to rundown her face and it's like she couldn't take it. She always got made fun of but her own fears now were even more real.

A hand covered her eyes as she willed herself to stop crying, out of anger or just hurt. Why was she a mess, she knew why. No one else would ever know why. But what would happen when it became too late?

A finger stroked her throat and she kept the hand against her eyes.

"Jude." Cardan kept the tip of his finger against the pulse in her neck, not hard. "You have to learn to laugh with them."

He took her hand down from her face and lead her to their rooms, rooms no one would ever know were hers, that they poked fun at their queen. She stood in the middle of the bedroom, eyeing the familiar bed with her fists now clenched. His hands undid the bow of the ties on the back of her dress. The green fabric pooled at her feet and he stroked down her back, fingers pinching a bit of skin on her side.

"It was bound to happen with age, Jude." His lips pressed to her shoulder, then the other. Her breath hitched and he smiled, "what am I going to do with you? I should punish you for pulling me away from my own party."

Jude hissed at him, anger making her go red. "I didn't ask for you to follow me."

He spun her around grabbing her chin forcefully, eyes burning into hers. "You know I always will. I don't know what it is about you that makes me feel this way, that makes me desire you so much." His mouth claimed hers and she fought to pull away. "Why do you try to deny me, Jude. Deny this? We both know that in my bed, under me, you are all too willing for me."

"Too much if I have a say." Jude pulls away, face hot as she pants. Cardan takes a step back circling her. "I hate you." She gets out not sure if it's still true not with how he pauses in front of her.

"I know." He whispers then a look passes in his dark eyes as he reaches out to touch the lower part of her abdomen. "Jude."

His pale hand flattens there and they wait.

Wait for whatever came next.

"Fuck." Is what was hissed from between his lips as he took her hands in his and spun them to sit her on the edge of the bed. He got on his knees, something he would only do for her, and took her thighs in each hand and lowered his mouth onto her. He moaned as she did, he was right she was the sweetest taste he had ever feasted on and there as his tongue and lips moved against her he felt, no he knew, she was different. "Jude."

"Yes." It was the answer to his unspoken question.

A silent rage fired in him and he drug her to the standing mirror they had in the room, he had her face herself in the mirror — like her reflection would be different. He caressed the bump of her stomach before bending her over slightly and entering her. They were quiet save for the moans as he thrust into her. His hold on her hair and hip rough but not unkind. Her eyes never left his, she wanted to say she hated him, she wanted to but different words almost formed on her lips.

"I hate you, Cardan."

"I know, Jude. I know." He couldn't be cruel in that moment with some witty scathing response, even as he was in the beginning, not now. Not when they both knew he couldn't lie like she could. When they both know the three words he never speaks out loud.

That's how the rest of the revel went with the guests dancing on like there wasn't any difference at the lack of their ruler. They danced as their king took their unknown queen apart in their bedroom. On her hands and knees staring at every inch of skin in the mirror did the noises he most liked leave her. A confession of those words heavy in the air, and with the seizing of his own body Jude pushed back into him, letting Cardan wrap his arms around her midriff as she rested her head on his shoulder.

She wanted to curse at him, call him all things vile, but she couldn't. The want was there but the need wasn't. Like the life inside her took that all away. And not for the first time that night she wondered would it be a curling black haired boy with dark eyes like Cardan? Would it be a headstrong little brown eyed girl like her? Would the baby be accepted, probably not by the court — but would it fair better than she would, their unknown queen?

A tickle on her side and his tail caressed the skin, flicking once over part of her abdomen. The small swell of flesh that would grow and grow until it was undeniable what she was. Soft lips ran along her neck, dark eyes meeting hers in the mirror. Eyes full of questions.

"The teasing?" He waited and she was unsure if he really cared.

"The woman's pleasure?" She pulled away a new kind of anger in her, she had no right and every right to be furious — and jealous — with the faerie she was lying with. The one who took her as his unspoken wife. "Agreeing to talk about a courtship between a friend of your brother's daughter and yourself? In front of the court," it didn't matter about the court. It never would she was the invisible queen. "In front of me — us?" She whispered as she climbed to her feet. "And then to act like you didn't know, then agreeing to Locke's teasing? You don't know what it's like to see your husband look at pretty faces and tease you for yours. To see the person, whose child you're carrying might I add, say that you're gaining weight. To make fun of that and knowing that you know why you're gaining weight. Then to fear what would happen if you told that person and they reject you.

"I mean," she knew she was babbling especially by the annoying flick of Cardan's tail on the floor where he still kneeled. "I may just be your sworn queen, and your wife but what is a wife? Really, what is a wife when you can have consorts and children with them? Woman's pleasure after pleasure every night in your bed. A different one every night. You could put me in an estate far from here as my stomach gets rounder. Have me and the…" she paused hand fluttering to her stomach. "Out of the way. To not impede you." She was a mess, Jude knew that, she knew it was the pregnancy making her lips so loose. Though this was all stuff needing to be said out loud to him, both of them. To her.

"I am dirt, I will be worm food. And you'll have this throne and crown. I'm just a face—"

He shot to his feet then, a look so intended to cut her down in his eyes. "Don't you behave as if you are so replaceable to me, wife. Sharing when you found out about my child in your womb would have been preferable. The joy that would have been there, instead of you assuming how I'd react. I would scream it from the sky if able, that I am having a child. It scares me like you wouldn't know, but don't assume you know how I'd react or what I want."

"Cardan," she paused when he held up a finger and then she furrowed her brows. "You can't even say it back. You think of every way to deny me in your twist of words or you choose to not answer because we both know what you would say."

Cardan stepped close, tail going almost crazy because of his impatient anger. "What would you like me to say? That I love you? Do you know how I wish I didn't feel anything for you? It would be so easy for me then, but now with this life you will bring into the world. Into my court — our home it gets harder to remember why. Why I felt anything other than what I feel for you now, dammit, Jude. Damn you."

They stared at each other chests panting in their own stewing brash anger, Jude had a hand placed to her stomach. A gesture that he most certainly noticed. "I want to lie to you, so many times it would be easier to lie. To tell you that you disgust me and that you're only good on your back. I'd love to cast you out because one day, Jude, you will be gone from my life and that is a pain I wish not on anyone. Not even my enemies that wait for me to fall." His dark eyes flickered down to the area behind her palm. "I worry now with this information that harm may come to you even more — you will not be fighting with our child inside you." A harsh string of words as he started to circle her. "Many will want to stop me from having an heir to continue my line. Many will want to harm you even more now, and I will do everything even die myself to keep that from happening." Hungry eyes trained on her face.

"Tell me a lie." He whispered, watching.

"I was furious that you were thinking of taking another to your bed."

A small smile, "I said a lie, wife."

"I was hurt at the thought of you denying me and this child."

The smile grew wider, "that's not one either."

She turned with him, "I worry you won't want me in your bed."

He reached out to tilt her face up. "I said lie to me, Jude. I will not ask again."

She smirked. "I wonder who this child would be more like, you or me? And how would you look holding this baby of ours. I wonder if you'll enjoy it so much that you'll forget everything and let me do it again, if I wish to."

"I. Said. Lie."

"I hate you, Cardan." He let her go and let his eyes appraise her.

"And yet here we are, you standing right there waiting for me. Like some good tasting treat and I plan to have you. Down to the last bite." He let his hands take hold of her hips as he kneeled in front of her. He kissed the inside of her thigh as he pulled her leg of his shoulder. He didn't care about the taste of him on his tongue just delighting in her. Her fertileness with child. His fingers dug into her thighs as he continued with his tongue, drawing out each pleased whimper from her.

She let him press her chest down on the floor back in front of that mirror and she watched them in the reflection through her hair. The way his muscles moved with each shift of him, his tail where it touched her. His face, that was the best view him looking at her open mouthed as he held her arms, one in each of his hands, behind her. He demanded her eyes stay open to get her to see what he saw. She cried his name over and over before he pulled her up against him, taking her mouth with his. His tongue tasted of them.

He grit his teeth once they pulled away, the feeling of her tightening around him was delicious. She tossed her head back with a cry and gave him her release. That didn't stop him from flipping her onto her back, she dug her nails of one hand into the flesh of his bicep the other trailed up his scarred back to play with the hair at the nape of his neck.

"What do we do once I can't hide it anymore? You know what they'll say about me, about this, the baby." She held onto him as his hips stuttered and he hissed her name against her neck, both spent for the time.

"I'll deal with that when the time comes."


End file.
